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Friday, June 17, 2016

Clash in Chitral over Kalash girl’s ‘forced’ conversion to Islam

ISLAMABAD: Hundreds
of Muslims clashed with members of Kalash tribe in Chitral on Thursday after a
teenager claimed she was forced to convert to Islam, police and residents said.

Police fired
tear gas to disperse the crowd attacking a house in the Kalash tribe’s valley
of Bumburate in the northwestern district of Chitral, where the girl had gone
to give a police statement about her conversion, said Kalash activist Luke
Rehmat.

The Kalash,
country’s smallest religious minority, celebrate their gods through music and
dance – an anomaly in conservative Muslim Pakistan.

They number only
around 4,000, according to Rehmat. Increasingly their youth are converting to
Islam, prompting activists to campaign to preserve the traditions of the
ancient, diminishing tribe.

The teenager had
“returned to her home saying embracing Islam was a mistake and she wanted to
live with her family, which infuriated the Muslim community,” Rehmat said.

She went to a
neighbour’s house to speak to police, the home’s owner told AFP, but hundreds
of people began to gather outside as word spread through the close-knit
community.

“The Kalash
community had also gathered to save the family and when the Muslims chanting
slogans attacked the house with sticks and pelted stones everybody was running
for their lives,” Rehmat, who was out of breath from fleeing the scene, told
AFP by telephone.

“Dozens” were
injured, he said, though apparently none seriously.

“Law enforcement
agencies reached here on time otherwise they would have killed all of us,” said
local Kalash politician Imran Kabeer.

It was not clear
what happened to the teenager.

Conversions
threaten ancient Kalash tribe

Police of
Chitral said the district police chief had gone to Bumburate with other senior
officers, adding that the situation was under control.

The owner of the
house that was attacked was also in Chitral, where he said police were refusing
to let him return home.

“They came out
in a mob to attack my house and to kill my wife and my children,” he said,
asking to remain anonymous.

“They threw
stones at the roof and at the windows. Police were firing in the air.”

Chitral, a
northern district of Khyber-Pukhtunkwa, has long attracted tourists for its
beauty and has hitherto been notable for having been spared the country’s
violence.